Halioua and colleagues hold up the actions of a group they believe show medicine at its best

The Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem defines someone who is a “righteous among the nations” as any gentile who saved the life of a Jew during the Holocaust or aided a Jew who was helpless and facing death or deportation without exacting monetary compensation or other rewards. Such people are honoured with a medal bearing the inscription: “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world” (Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin).1

Studies of medicine from the Holocaust era have mostly focused on Nazi experiments in concentration camps and processes for exterminating Jews. None have been carried out on those doctors and medical students who risked their lives to aid and assist Jews during the second world war and were granted the status of righteous among the nations.

From the Encyclopaedia of the Righteous Among the Nations2 and the Yad Vashem website (http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/search.html?language=en), we identified doctors and medical students who had been granted the status of righteous among the nations. We evaluated their files to determine the circumstances of the rescue; the place, date, names, and numbers of Jews rescued; and the fate of the medic by the end of the second world war.

As of 1 January 2013, 24 811 people from 44 countries have been granted the title of righteous among the nations (table⇓). Among these were 245 doctors and 31 medical students, representing 1% …